Mandriva Spring 2008 The New “Definitive” Linux?
I’ll just lay this out right from the beginning: Mandriva Spring 2008 Live CD is better than most other distributions fully installed. I am currently writing this blog on a laptop (that is generally flaky about Linux distributions) running the Live version of Mandriva Spring 2008. And even without installing the distribution I am very impressed. Let’s see just how this is faring.
Display: Works perfectly.
Wireless: Works perfectly.
Sound: Works perfectly.
Hibernation: Works for the most part but because of the Live nature the laptop doesn’t want to fully hibernate.
Performance: Outstanding (blows away the currently installed gOS).
Installation: Quirky but simple.
So now, let’s break it down into its constituent pieces.
Installation
It’s not so much the installation that was quirky but loading the Live CD that caught me off guard. Generally a Live CD is booted and places you directly on the desktop. The Mandriva Spring 2008 version of the Live CD first had you select your local and your keyboard and then you actually had to accept an EULA. I have never come across this in a Linux distribution. So I accepted the EULA and then had to select my local and keyboard yet again. Once that was done the live CD booted to the login where you select Guest as the user and no password.
Once logged in everything worked perfectly. I had to open up the network connection tool and select my wireless network. But once I clicked connect I was up and running (and writing this blog.) I really like what Mandriva has done with KDE 3.5. The look and feel is one of the nicest default KDE themes I have seen.
Now the installation on one of my desktop machines was flawless. During the installation you are asked if you want 3D desktop effects enabled and what you want to handle them (either Compiz or Matisse - I chose Compiz.)
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Mandriva Spring 2008
FTA: "This is, without a doubt, the finest release of any Linux distribution I have ever experienced in my 10+ years of using Linux."
It's true. I can attest to the same experience.
Mandriva Spring 2008
Mandriva is **THE** desktop Linux. Full stop.
THE Desktop Linux?
After I read this review I burned a CD and give it a shoot on my test machine. But after a short test this is what I got:
-I couldn´t choose my language and/or country (Sweden)
-Mandriva didn´t recognised my monitor (Acer AL1917) nor my graphic card (sparkle Nvidia 6200) consecuently I didn´t got the right resolution.
-I was unable to play streaming media (Windows Media, Realplayer files) online, and it didn´t gave me a solution.
But that´s the beauty Linux and all its flavours, we have differents tastes and differents needs, some use KDE and others Gnome. I´ll continue with Debian and its derivates for a while.